Early level designs in Paint, later recreated in Unity to showcase core mechanics:
Our project group made ChronoSyphonics in Unity, taking advantage of Unity's version control for efficient collaboration (although one had to be left out). Given our courses with Unity, it was the natural choice to use it for development. For the creation of the 3D assets, we used Blender as it is easily accessible and we also had courses on that through 3DMA.
From the beginning we intended the game to have at least three to four different levels. This is the simplest way to have a three-act story within our game, e.g. the beginning: a tutorial in which you learn how to use the different bullets at your disposal (like magnet bullets, EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse bullets), the middle: the two levels with the most basic yet fundamental gameplay aspects of our game: platforming and shooting the heck out of the monstrosities. The third act consists of beating the biggest “Gunblob”.
Early level designs in Paint, later recreated in Unity to showcase core mechanics:
Early depiction of a Unity testing scene used in the development process.
Throughout our development we had to iterate multiple playtests in order to obtain good action-oriented feedback or ‘juiciness’. There were some initial setbacks with lack of clarity when it comes to certain gun behaviour. This was later fixed however. Overall, we are most proud of the fluid movement we’ve created. Strafing and jumping feel natural and sprinting combined with increased field-of-view definitely helped too.
ChronoSyphonics is heavily developed with state machine design in mind. The game has multiple objects which have several different states based on player interactions. Take the bullets, that loaded in, but can also be shot. Or the metal blocks, being magnetized or not.
To create the postapocolyptic atmosphere, our models for the monsters were designed with as much heinousness as possible, making the enemies be only vaguely human. Also our walls and miscillaneous modelsa are intended to give off an eerie feeling. The visuals of the game are akin to that of PS3 graphics but clashing with more retro-style textures. A clash of distinct visual styles in order to give the vibe something is very wrong in this biopunk driven world.
Several pieces of concept art for different aspects of the game. To see some of their associated 3D models, look here:
